constitutional oligarchy

123 Pages·2009·0.76 MB·English

by  Political Science

CONSTITUTIONAL OLIGARCHY: THE COMPLEX UNITY OF THE IMPERIAL
JAPANESE STATE IN THE FACE OF CRISIS

by

NICHOLAS A. R. FRASER
B.A., The University of Calgary, 2007

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

in

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Political Science)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)

November 2009

© Nicholas A. R. Fraser
ii
ABSTRACT
Under the Meiji Constitution, a political system designed to create an institutional
framework that allowed for the sustained oligarchic rule of the Meiji Genrō, Japan experienced
multiple crises generated by popular upheaval against the government during the interwar years.
One was an economic crisis in 1918 triggered by Japan‟s participation in the First World War which
generated an unprecedented level of popular protests in the form of nation-wide riots and some
strikes. Known as the Rice Riots, this crisis threatened to unleash a confrontation of the Meiji
Genrō by political parties holding seats in the Diet who sought to establish party-led cabinets. A
second crisis occurred in 1936 when 1400 soldiers of the Imperial Army stationed in Tokyo
occupied government buildings and assassinated several high-ranking government officials in an
attempt to set up a an all-military cabinet. While both party-politicians and military officers had
further expanded their influence over the policy-process after these crises neither set of actors
suspended, revised or replaced the Meiji Constitutional system. It is the purpose of this thesis to
explore the reason why the Imperial Japanese polity was not structurally altered as a result of
power change that accompanied the Rice Riots and the 1936 Incident. This essay makes two
arguments about the Meiji Constitutional system‟s sustainability during the prewar years. First, it
argues that the Meiji Constitutional system due to institutional design and elite political culture
functioned in practice as an oligarchic state. Second, it argues that the reason the Meiji
Constitution was never revised, suspended or discarded during the course of regime change was
because political parties and high ranking military officers ended up using the same strategies as
the Meiji Genrō to successfully maneuver the institutional structure of the policy-process. Hence, in
the process of learning how to master the institutional dynamics of the political system, they
eventually overcame legislative deadlock and in the process stabilized the oligarchic state without

having to reform it in order to expand their power within it.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………………......ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………………………..iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………………......vi

LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………………………….v

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………….......1

I. Conventional Theoretical Approaches to Studying Prewar Japanese Politics………………….......5

Barrington Moore‟s Marxist Approach and its Theoretical Problems…………………………………...6

Richard J. Samuels‟ Political Leadership Approach and its Theoretical Problems…………………...8

J. Mark Ramseyer and Frances M. Rosenbluth‟s Rational Choice Approach and its
Theoretical Problems……………………………………………………………………………………….10

Shūichi Kato‟s Institutionalist Approach and its Theoretical Problems…………………………….....12

II. Oligarchic Policy-Making Theory as an Approach to Studying Prewar Japanese Politics………14

R. P. G. Steven‟s Hybrid Constitutional Theory: a Basis for Conceptualizing the Meiji
Constitutional System in Practice…………………………………………………………………………15

Expanding Steven‟s Hybrid Constitutional Theory to Explain the Long-Term Stability of the
Meiji Constitutional System………………………………………………………………………………..20

Blending Political Culture with Institutions: Oligarchic Policy-Making Theory………………………..26

Observable Implications of Oligarchic Policy-Making Theory………………………………………….28

Methodological Approach……………………………………………………………………………….....35

III. The Development of Oligarchic Policy-Making in the Meiji Period………………………………...37

The Legacy of Passive Imperial Leadership………………………………………………………….....37

The Re-Emergence of Passive Imperial Rule during the Meiji Period………………………………..38

Oligarchic Policy-Making in Early Meiji Japan: The Product of Passive Imperial Rule and
iv
Oligarchic Institution-Building……………………………………………………………………………..41

The Institutional Framework of the Meiji Constitution…………………………………………………..46

The Early Years of the Meiji Constitutional System and the Persistence of Oligarchic
Policy-Making and in the Imperial Japanese Polity……………………………………………………..48

IV. Test Case One: Assessing the Culture of Policy-Making in the Era of the 1918
Rice Riots……………………………………………………………………………………………………52

Understanding the Political Context of the Rice Riots……………………………………………….....52

The Rice Riots and the Long-term Political Consequences…………………………………………...55

The Marxist Interpretation of the Rice Riots and its Theoretical Problems…………………………..57

The Political Leadership Theory Interpretation of the Rice Riots and its
Theoretical Problems……………………………………………………………………………………….58

The Rational Choice Theory Interpretation of the Rice Riots and its Theoretical Problems…….....60

The Institutionalist Interpretation of the Rice Riots and its Theoretical Problems…………………...62

Oligarchic Policy-Making Theory‟s Interpretation of the Rice Riots…………………………………...63

V. Test Case Two: Assessing the Culture of Policy-Making in the Era of the 1936 Incident……….78

Understanding the Political Context of the 1936 Incident………………………………………………78

The 1936 Incident and its Long Term Political Consequences………………………………………..82

The Marxist Interpretation of the 1936 Incident and its Theoretical Problems……………………….84

The Political Leadership Interpretation of the 1936 Incident and its Theoretical Problems………...85

The Rational Choice Interpretation of the 1936 Incident and its Theoretical Problems………….....86

The Institutionalist Interpretation of the 1936 Incident and its Theoretical Problems…………….....87

Oligarchic Leadership Theory‟s Interpretation of the 1936 Incident…………………………………..88

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………….105

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………………………………..114
v
TABLES

Table 1: Typologies for classifying potentially destabilizing political crises…………………….…….33
Table 2: Typologies for conceptualizing different responses by regime to
potentially destabilizing crises……………………………………………………………………………..34
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my mother for giving me the diligent work ethic required to see this project
through.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Yves Tiberghien, for taking the
time to help me adjust to the hyper competitive positivist academic climate that is modern
comparative political science and for being extremely encouraging as well as generous with
constructive criticism.

I would also like to express sincere thanks to Dr. Benjamin Nyblade acting as my second-reader
and contributing to the betterment of my thesis. Like Dr. Tiberghien, Dr. Nyblade was instrumental
in helping me think like a comparative political scientist—special thanks on this matter also go to Dr.
Alan Jacobs whose methods class almost killed me but made me stronger as well as Dr. Lisa
Sundstrom whose advice in the early stages of my work was crucial.

I would also like to thank Go Murakami for the countless hours he put in helping me perfect my
craft as well as Rhea McCarroll, Daria Boltokova and Konrad Kalicki for their boundless moral
support.

I would also like to thank Beth Schwartz, Anastasia Shesterina, Augustin Goenaga, Aim Sinpeng
and Serbulent Turan for taking valuable time out of their schedules to help me with drafts and
prepare to defend this body of work.

Special thanks go to my friends and family for supporting me through what has been a relentless
task of immense proportions.

Finally, I would like Robert O. Paxton, Mike Patton, Henry Rollins, and Greg Ginn, whose passion
and genius have inspired me during the course of this project.
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INTRODUCTION

During the interwar years many European countries experienced political crises that
resulted in the revision, replacement and/or collapse of prevailing political institutions. In contrast to
these, Asia‟s first modern state and the twentieth century‟s only non-western imperial power, Japan
experienced high levels of political upheaval in the interwar years but never underwent regime
change before 1945. Between 1917 and 1919, Russia, Italy, Germany and Japan all experienced
economic crises related to participation—either as combatants or non-combatants—in the First
World War. This combined with other factors sparked revolution and varying degrees of civil war in
Russia and Germany, and replacement of democratic institutions with a fascist dictatorship in Italy
by the mid 1920‟s. Japan experienced nation-wide riots for several weeks, known as the Rice Riots,
in 1918 and experienced a change in government but not a change in the structure of its political
system. In the 1930‟s, the Great Depression triggered increases in violent attacks from and a rise
in popular support for the radical right in Germany, Spain and Japan. Spain‟s existing political
institutions were destroyed by a civil war and the establishment of a military dictatorship.
Germany‟s were revised to facilitate the building of a fascist state under the Nazi Party. Though the
military increased its influence in politics and there were many attempted coups by military officers,
Japan never experienced regime change in the 1930‟s. Many Japanese specialists have argued
that Japan experienced periods of democratic rule in the 1920‟s and military or fascist dictatorship
in the 1930‟s and 40‟s. If this were true then why didn‟t party politicians or military officers in their
expansion of power suspend, revise or replace the Meiji Constitutional system?
It will be the purpose of this essay to explore the nature of the Meiji Constitutional system
in terms of its structural stability throughout the prewar period. Specifically the question that this
essay seeks to explore is as follows: why didn‟t power change during the prewar period—that is the
rise of party-led and then military-led cabinets cause the replacement, revision or suspension of the
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Meiji Constitution? This essay makes two arguments about the Meiji Constitutional system‟s
sustainability during the prewar years. First, it argues that the Meiji Constitutional system due to
institutional design and elite political culture functioned in practice as an oligarchic state. Second, it
argues that the reason the Meiji Constitution was never revised, suspended or discarded during the
course of regime change was because political parties and high ranking military officers ended up
using the same strategies as the Meiji Genrō1 to successfully maneuver the institutional structure of
the policy-process. Hence, in the process of learning how to master the institutional dynamics of
the political system, they eventually overcame legislative deadlock and in the process stabilized the
oligarchic state without having to reform it in order to expand their power within it.
This essay will utilize process-tracing to examine the ways in which elite political actors within
the Meiji Constitutional system managed conflict between actors from different policy-affecting
institutions. Specifically this essay will focus on two cases, that is the Rice Riots of 1918 and the
1936 Incident. Both of these events represented or created significant legitimacy crises for the
government as there were members of particular policy-affecting institutions who sought to have
their institution gain more control over the political system. In the case of the Rice Riots, an
economic crisis caused popular upheaval throughout the country and could have been marshaled
by party-politicians in the Diet who sought to oust the existing Genrō-led cabinet (see chapter four).
In the 1936 Incident, military officers seized control of Tokyo for several days in an attempt to
establish active imperial leadership in the establishment of a military dictatorship. Although these

1 Genrō means „elder statesman‟ and is a term used to describe those individuals who served in the oligarchic
government that emerged after the overthrow of the Tokugawa feudal polity in the late 1860‟s. The oligarchy contained
several hundred individuals but as time wore on many of its members were absorbed into the new state institutions
which said government had mandated. By the 1880‟s the oligarchy was considerably smaller and collectively ran the
state and manipulated politics from behind the scenes once the Meiji Constitution was promulgated in 1889. These
individuals were known as Genrō. Richardson, Bradley M. and Flanagan, Scott C. Politics in Japan. Little, Brown and
Company, 1984., 6-15
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low- and mid-ranking officers had sympathizers in the Army High Command, the latter did not
support the former (see chapter five).
In each crisis, party-politicians in the first and military officers in the second, sought to expand
their power to unprecedented levels over the political system. These crises might have provided
them with an incentive to circumvent institutional structures to increase their power at the expense
of other institutional actors, yet in both cases neither pursued this course of action. In the end,
political parties were able to gain more political influence by working with and mimicking the Genrō
rather than fighting them. Similarly, Imperial Japan‟s military‟s leadership did use the 1936 Incident
to attain more influence in government but by compromising with the Imperial Diet rather than
coercing it. Hence, party-politicians and military officers were able to use crisis to expand their
power over the political system in a way that did not circumvent but utilized existing norms to
successfully maneuver the institutional structure of the policy process. The significance of this is
that the policy-process was never altered in such a way that it removed or introduced new
institutional actors, and for this reason the oligarchic regime itself was never removed or changed.
This thesis will be broken into five major sections. The first section will first evaluate
existing theoretical approaches to studying the prewar political system and assess why they have
failed to adequately address the stability of the Imperial state during the Rice Riots and the 1936
Incident. The second section will establish a theoretical and methodological framework for
analyzing the Meiji Constitutional system as it operated in practice. This section will outline a new
theoretical approach based upon R.P.G. Steven‟s Hybrid Constitutional model of prewar Japanese
politics and proceed to explain the process-tracing methodology pursued in this work. The third
section will explain the development of oligarchic policy-making as an entrenched norm before the
Meiji Constitutional system was established (1889-1890). The passivity of imperial rule and the late
development of an institutionalized policy-process will be highlighted and it will be argued that
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these combined to create an oligarchic state in practice. The fourth section will examine the Rice
Riots of 1918 and focus on how this crisis could have but did not destabilize the Meiji Constitutional
system. This section will focus analysis on how the entrenched norm of oligarchic policy-making
created low incentives for ascending party politicians to attack the regime directly. The fifth section
will assess why the 1936 Incident did not destabilize the Meiji Constitutional system. Analysis will
focus on how the entrenched norm of oligarchic policy-making created low incentives for high
ranking military officers to fully support a coup d‟état carried out by the Young Officers‟ Movement.
This will be followed by a thoughtful conclusion.